VIDEO: Giant squid filmed alive

RESEARCHERS from The University of Queensland have played a key role in filming the first video images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat, shot in lightless water up to a kilometre deep.

PhD student Wen-Sung Chung, from the Queensland Brain Institute at UQ, operated Medusa, a remote-controlled underwater camera craft that filmed the squid last northern summer near the Ogasawara Islands, 1000km south of Japan.

The Discovery Channel — along with Japanese public television network NHK — broadcast the video to a mass worldwide audience last month. The video was filmed with the UQ-designed camera system.